Monday, 13 October 2014

George Harrison "Brainwashed" (2002)

"You
pay your fare, and if you don't know where you're going then any road will take
you there" I keep travelling around the bend, there is no beginning there
is no end, it wasn't born and it never dies, there are no edges there are no
sides" "How come no one really noticed? Puff of white smoke knocked
me out! The truth is hiding, lurking, banking, things they do at night"
"I'm a pisces fish and the river runs through my soul" "There's
a temple on an island, I think of all the Gods and what they feel, you can only
find them in the deepest silence, I've got to get off this big wheel"
"Sometimes my life it seems like fiction, some of the days it's really
quite serene, I'm living proof of all life's contradictions, one half's going
where the other half's just been" "Every word you've uttered and
every thought you had, is all inside your file - the good and the bad"
"I was almost a statistic inside a doctor's case, when I heard the
messenger from inner space, he was sending me a signal that for so long I had
ignored, but he held on to my umbilical cord, until the ghost of memory trapped
in my body mind, came out of hiding to become alive" "Universe at
play inside your DNA, you're a billion years old today" "Never been
so crazy, never felt so sure, I wish I had the answer to give, but I don't even
have the cure!" "Lonely days, blue guitar, there's no escape, can
only run so far" "The soul does not love - it is love itself. It does
not exist - it is existence itself. It does not know - it is knowledge
itself" "A voice cried out in the wilderness, it was on the lowest
night, an eternity of darkness, someone turned out the spiritual light"

George Harrison
"Brainwashed" (2001)

Any Road/P2 Vatican
Blues (Last Saturday Night)/Pisces Fish/Looking For My Life/Rising Sun/Marwa
Blues//Stuck Inside A Cloud/Run So Far/Never Get Over You/Between The Devil and
the Deep Blue Sea/Rocking Chair In Hawaii/Brainwashed

"Music
is not just music, it is love itself. Music does not just exist, it is
existence itself. Music does not just know, it is knowledge itself. Reviews do
not just review, it is writing itself. How to know Max The Singing Dog, page
130" (Alan's Album Archives Manual 40th edition printed 3002)

"They
brainwash you while you in your childhood and throughout your lives, they
brainwash you while you're reading reviews on Alan's Album Archives, They
brainwashed Alan's Album Archives into calling this a job, they even got my
grandma before she turned into Max The Dog" (Alan's Album Archives Expose:
What Really Went On Under Max The Dog's Hat, printed 3502)

Give
me plenty of that guitar...

'Brainwashed' will forever be associated with George
Harrison's sad death at the age of 59 from throat cancer. Released a year to
the day since his sad end, 'Brainwashed' became the second ever posthumous
Beatles album (following John Lennon's 1982 album 'Milk and Honey'), by rights
it should be the best-selling album in George's back catalogue - released to a
big media blitz and co-inciding with a deeply moving tribute concert featuring
Paul, Ringo and Eric Clapton, it seemed that George's time had come at last.
Those who heard this album before rushing out and buying it though were largely
surprised: while few reviews were bad or
even indifferent to this album, it just doesn't seem to be what people were
expecting it to be. Naturally, assumed by many fans to be a last will,
testament and farewell from a musician and man who gave so much - especially after
learning that George had been poorly for a couple of years and with media
reports of the feverish work George put into making this album before he died
still very recent. However George's more languid pace of work in the second
half of his career meant that 'Brainwashed' is actually an album with one of
the longest gestation periods of them all in the AAA (some 14 years from 1988
to 2002). By rights it's the album that should have come out after 'Cloud Nine'
in 1987 had life, court cases, Beatle reunions and The Travelling Wilburys not
got in the way (this is essentially the record George started mentioning as far
back as 1989, when it was titled 'Portrait Of A Leg End' and came with a
picture of a foot! He later joked in 2000 when pressed about his next LP that
it would be called 'The World Is Doomed - Part One'!) Most of the people who
bought 'Brainwashed' wanted this to be more than just another
very-good-but-not-great George Harrison album; they wanted a record that would
help soothe their tears and help them cope with life without George. After all,
Harrison wrote about death more than perhaps anyone else in popular music (or
at least natural death and what might happen next - I guess a few heavy metal
rockers beat him in terms of describing murders and things!) and his 'All
Things Must Pass' album - undergoing a renaissance in fortunes thanks to a
timely CD re-issue in the Millennium - is one of the greatest song cycles about
death and re-birth ever written (starting with the title track). People needed
comfort. People needed hope. People needed to know George was at peace. People
needed another 'All Things Must Pass'. Instead what they got was an album that
finds George more troubled and unsure of himself than perhaps at any other time
in his career: 'Wish I could have the answer but don't even have the cure' he
sings apologetically at one stage, as if he knows how the impression this album
is going to give.

While many of the songs do date from later when
George was ill (the title track and 'Marwa Blues' for two), an awful lot of
these songs date from the late 1980s and early 1990s when George was feeling a
little lost. The surprise hit singles and hit album of 1987 had temporarily
made George a superstar again, a situation he had fought tooth and nail to
escape the first time and didn't want to return to. While many think of George
as the most 'mystical' of The Beatles, he was in many ways also the most
grounded (just listen to 'Taxman'!) and
the one most likely to start doubting himself when told over and over again how
popular he was. A hit album with The Travelling Wilburys only escalated things
(unsure of how it would do Warner Brothers spent a lot of time publicising
their first album as well, although second album 'volume three' was a far more
understated affair). However, this time George didn't even get to enjoy the
riches of his success: a long-standing court case against business partner and
longterm friend Denis O'Brien over money that he had been taking from their
company Handmade Films was finally settled in George's favour but exhausted him
more than he perhaps let on to the media and the betrayal hit him hard. Reports
vary, but George's acceptance of 'The Beatles Anthology' (a project he'd been
veto-ing on and off since 1972) in the mid-1990s may only have been to recover
the losses from this period and Harrison wasn't quite as enthusiastic over the
project as Paul and Ringo (although George actually gives better interviews
than either). The awful night at the end
of 1999 when intruder Michael Abram broke into the Harrison's Friar Park house
and stabbed George, aiming to kill him (he would have succeeded if wife Olivia
hadn't hit him over the head with a table-lamp) was a violent end to a rather
troubled decade (asked by the press if
he was an intruder, George quipped 'Well, I don't think he was auditioning for
the Travelling Wilburys!') Understandably, there are lots of lyrical references
to things going wrong, to being in a 'mess', to being hoodwinked, to being
'brainwashed' : 'There's no way out, can only run so far' the album sighs as if
trapped in from every side. Had George resurrected 'Not Guilty' (his song of
betrayal and bitterness from the 'White Album' and released on 'Anthology
Three') a third time I wouldn't have been surprised.

Religion was usually George's escape and source of
inspiration in troubled times and there indeed more 'Gods' per line than any
Harrison record since 'Extra Texture' (1975). However, this isn't the certain
album of a devout believer the way that 'My Sweet Lord' and 'The Lord Loves The
One That Loves The Lord' were - many of these songs have the narrator as lost
and alone, 'stuck', crying out for direction and purpose and wondering perhaps
for the first time if there really is anyone up there ('Vatican P2 Blues' is an
attack on the Christian Church rather than religion per se, but it's the first
song knocking any form of religion George had made and sounds oddly out of
place in the context of all his other songs). Could it be that George also had
the stabbing incident in the back of his mind (and, possibly, Lennon's 19 years
earlier) when he wrote some of these songs, when - in a mirror of The Bible -
he'd chanted and prayed to God to be saved only for his attacker to keep on
coming. You would have thought, after all those wonderful sure songs, that
George would face death happier than most other people, but till 1999 (shortly
before the diagnosis) death was an abstract concept; you can forgive George for
being more ruffled about his attitude to the next life when he came so close to
ending up there before his time. However that makes for an interesting dialogue
in his songs we've never heard before and one that would have been fascinating
to hear work itself out across the next couple of albums: was this a temporary
blip, forced upon George by circumstances that would have troubled anyone? Or
would this have been the start of something deeper and more pressing? Compared
back to back with the confident, almost aggressive 'Cloud Nine' or the
Travelling Wilburys albums (admittedly made purely for fun rather than deep
messages) the difference is one of the biggest across any two AAA albums, a man
falling from 'Cloud Nine' to the depths of hell. While 'Brainwashed' noticeably
ends in a prayer asking God to 'lead us from this mess' (suggesting that
Harrison hasn't lost all his faith just yet), George also seems to point the
finger that this mess could all have been solved easily in the first place and
for the first time has doubts about a faith he's been promoting in song and in
his actions for the better part of 35 years.

Doubt is the album's big theme, but there are
others. Remember when we said that George was the most 'mystical' and yet the
most 'grounded' of the Beatles? That could apply to any of George's albums
(even 'The White Album' damned us to hell with 'Piggies' and saved our souls in
'Long Long Long' a mere 12 songs apart), but especially to this one. 'Duality'
is a big theme for George, something which he explores head on in 'Pisces Fish'
for the first time. One of several rather good AAA songs covering astrology
(Stephen Stills' 'Fishes and Scorpions' and The Beach Boys' 'Funky Pretty' are
two others), it deals with the fact that Pisceans tend to be the most varied
sign in the zodiac: split between great poets painters and musicians and
murderers and politicians, most people who have this sign say they are 'pulled
in two', 'one half going where the other half's just been' as George puts in
the song (Johnny Cash is the perfect embodiment of a Piscean, singing about
murder, taking drugs and genuinely saving people's souls with spirituals his whole
life through). First wife Patti Boyd's book (titled 'Wonderful Today' after a
song Eric Clapton wrote for her) was published in 2007 six years after George's
death (and five after this album) but the book's most illuminating passage
sheds a lot of light on this. 'Where is George's hand today?' friends would ask
when they popped round to Friar Park. 'Is it in the prayer bag? Or the cocaine
bag?' Or, as the song's jolly cover song puts, forever trapped 'Between The
Devil and the Deep Blue Sea'. However at least this time the album ends with
the best closure possible: George's harsh dismissive political side sits side
by side with his loving, giving spiritual one on the title track, which is like
a biblical fight between God and the Devil transformed into song, ending in a
spiritual prayer. Even without George's death this would have been a key song:
for the first time since 'All Things Must Pass' he's found out how to combine
the two halves of his soul on the same song - the sky should have been the
limit for his writing from here-on in if only that had been meant to be.

One other, lesser theme across this album is one of
water. We've already discussed 'The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea'. 'Any Road'
adds the fact the narrator has been 'travelling deep beneath the waves' in his
quest to get answers. 'Pisces Fish' has George physically in the water as all
life carries on past him, the 'river running through my soul'. Even 'Marwa
Blue' sounds like a stretch of water somewhere (although its actually the name
of a fragrant plant!) What does the water signify then? Is it the 'spiritual
path' of enlightenment, a holy river George has been trying to get people to
'jump into' if you will? (It might not be coincidence that the 'fish' sign for
Pisces is also that for Christianity - or then again maybe not given the lyrics
to 'Vatican Blues'!) Is it a sign of George wanting spiritual via baptism (if
so has he been listening to too many Pete Townshend records?!) Or does the
water represent the unknowable, the life force that flows within and without us
all and takes us to the next level? Or had George recently bought a fish tank
and had water on the brain for a while?! Either way, it's there, sort of.

So far we haven't talked much about the recording or
the actual 'sound' of this album. George is in good voice throughout -
something that isn't always true of his other solo albums. While some tracks
give away their disparate production values ('Any Road' was written in 1987
during breaks in the making of the music video for 'This Is Love'; 'Devil' was
taped in 1992 and 'Run So Far' started out life as a song gifted to Clapton in
1989 -it's only speculation but I'd hazard a guess that 'Never Get Over You' is
1980s too: its sound very like the slide-guitar-with-harmonised-choir sound of
'Gone Troppo'), most of this album hangs together surprisingly well. George
left copious notes for what he wanted on the album and in what order, luckily
finishing at least a guide vocal and guitar part for each song he wanted on the
record. Dhani and Jeff still had a lot to do though: a lot of overdubbing and
instrument adding which they mainly did between themselves (Dhani is a fine
guitarist, like his dad) or with a few of George's old friends like drummer Jim
Keltner (who'd work with George since 1970), percussionist Ray Cooper (ditto
1973), Herbie Flowers (1979), guitarist Joe Brown (1983), and vocalist Sam
Brown (also 1983), resisting the temptation to make this some big grand
superstar statement and surrounding George with all the sounds that suited him
best (although it's a shame that Bob Dylan and Tom Petty aren't here
somewhere). By the way, is it just my ears or can I hear Ringo on the chorus of
the title track? If so then he's un-credited - and it seems odd that his name
would be left off the long list of people who did appear on the song. I'm
convinced that's him though. (If not it seems odd that he isn't here among this
cast of friends, especially as one of the last things George did have published
before his death was gift the guitar part on Ringo's 'The King Of Broken
Hearts' ('Vertical Man' 1998), although then again Ringo's last appearance on a
George album was Lennon tribute 'All Those Years Ago' in 1981 (on the album
'Somewhere In England'). The same goes for Eric Clapton, who plays a huge role
in forming the 'Concert For George' tribute the same week this album was out (a
very successful and moving event it is too - far better than all the
Yoko-sponsored Lennon tributes down the years that somehow missed the point).
The temptation to embellish 'Brainwashed' with extra bits and pieces it didn't
need must have been huge with record company pressure breathing down the necks
of Jeff and Dhani, who had to stay professional despite being in mourning. To
be honest I was very worried when I heard that this album still had to be
'finished' in George's absence: Jeff Lynne's productions have been a bit hit
and miss down the years (even the Travelling Wilburys records are gloss over
substance a lot of the time) and Dhani was then an unknown and untested
24-year-old with the weight of expectation of his family as well as Beatle fans
around the world weighing on his shoulders. I needn't have worried: the best
thing about 'Brainwashed' is that, despite the bitty recording dates and the
unfinished state George's legacy was left in, both men did a fabulous song:
from the first note to the last 'Brainwashed' sounds utterly like a 'George
Harrison' album - maybe even the archetypal George Harrison album in terms of
vocals, guitar and textures - and a fitting tribute to their father and friend.
You can tell how close the trio must have been in how well everything fits
together just the way George 'would' have done it.

However, one factor not quite playing ball was EMI.
Back on the label after years at Warner Brothers for what, sadly, turned into a
one-off album deal George's old pay-masters seem to have treated this album
badly from the start. Even after the album came out, with the packaging that
George insisted on, they decided it wasn't selling as many copies as they
expected and pulled it from the shops, issuing a 'replacement' cover of a happy
smiling George Harrison that didn't fit the album mood at all. The cover that
George wanted - a bunch of mannequins sat round a television - is very much in
keeping with the album (especially the title track) and a much more interesting
idea than any Harrison cover since 'Somewhere In England'. One last case of
'brainwashing' people into buying Beatle product, it shows how much had shifted
in the world's perceptions of The Beatles
since their second heyday with 'Anthology' five odd years before (and
who hadn't been this badly packaged since the awful compilation albums of the
1970s and 80s). By replacing something that told the 'truth' about modern
society (as George saw it - no, heck - scratch that, I caught the end of 'The
Voice' last night and it was awful, make that simply 'the truth', television
does brainwash people pure and simple) with something 'fake' that meant nothing
and simply wanted people to part from their cash under false pretences, EMI
unwittingly fell into the trap George pleads with us all to avoid on this
record. As the song says, nothing is worse than ignorance. After eleven
similarly troubled years with Warner Brothers, George really did deserve better
from the label who made billions out of his early work on the last product he
could ever have given them.

So, then, 'Brainwashed' is a troubled record from a
troubled period. The good news is that, unlike the last times George found
himself low and lacking in inspiration ('Dark Horse' 1974 through to 'Thirty
Three and A Third' in 1976 and 'Gone Troppo' in 1983), the gap between albums
and the sensitive handling of the project after his death by son Dhani and
friend Jeff Lynne means that there are less 'filler' songs here: only 'The
Devil and the Deep Blue Sea', rescued from a 1998 TV appearance with a
typically twinkly artificial piano part from host Jools Holland, sounds like it
doesn't deserve a place on the album (what's wrong with reviving 'Horse To The
Water' - also taped for a Jools Holland project, this time a various artists
album in 2000 that's much better and more suitable than this), everything else
is at least trying to offer something new. Indeed, had George lived to complete
it (and not fallen ill) While not every song is an out and out classic
('Rocking Chair In Hawaii' is an old song sensibly left off 'Cloud Nine'),
there's a lot of thought going into these songs both before and after George
died. Few Harrison songs are as instantly powerful as 'Stuck Inside A Cloud',
few as joyous as 'Any Road' and few tracks reflect the essence of George quite
as successfully as the gorgeous 'Pisces
Fish' or the delightful closing title track. Even 'Marwa Blues', a guitar-based
instrumental, is one of the most perfect tracks Harrison ever recorded rather
than the usual 'filler' of George's instrumentals (like 'Greece' and 'Wilbury
Twist'), the one moment on this album that sounds like someone who knows his
time is up. Like every George album, there is always something to love and
there's more to love here than there's been for a while I actually prefer it,
song for song, to the all-singing, all-dancing, high-charting 'Cloud Nine' as
'Brainwashed' contains much more George and far less identikit pop and - thank
goodness - the 1980s synthesisers are long gone despite the dating of some of
these songs and the fact that many of the same people worked on it. I'm
intrigued, actually, where 'Brainwashed' might have sat in George's canon had
his untimely death not overshadowed it: my guess is it would have been a fan
favourite, selling ok but not well five years on from Anthology and getting
respectably if slightly disinterested reviews. 'Brainwashed' deserves to be one
of those albums you forget about after buying but re-discover a few years down
the line when you 'need' to find it: when you too are as troubled and anguished
as the narrator. As an album greeted with the fanfare of 'his last work ever'
and 'a worthy tribute' , the unconfident 'Brainwashed' was always going to
shrink away from such a spotlight. Hard as they tried to 'brainwash' us into
thinking this was George's final, glorious farewell, 'Brainwashed' is another
mixed but generally impressive record about life, not death: one that in
typical George style is sometimes painful to hear but always told the truth as
he saw it whenever and wherever he could. 'Brainwashed' is important for so
many other reasons than just being the last words of the 'quiet Beatle': it may
well be the record that got closest to the 'real' George in all his
self-doubting, mistake-making, contradictory and very human greatness. There'll
never be his like again.

Who'd have thought, when George was busy filming his
video to 'This Is Love' in 1987, that the song he kept hurriedly writing on
scraps of paper wouldn't appear for another 15 years - or that he wouldn't be
around to see it? 'Any Road' is a song that had taken almost mythological
status amongst fans by that time: he even performed during what turned out to
be his last major interview, for VH-1 in 1997, on a ukulele! (Harrison plays it
on a banjolele on the album, which as the name suggests is a hybrid between a
ukulele and a four-string banjo). The
song may not be the greatest George ever wrote but it serves as a fine upbeat
opening and is very much in keeping with all of George's past works - much so
than the later songs on this album. Basically, this is a song about fate: even
when you're lost and struggling you'll somehow end up where you're supposed to
be. George adds in a few lines about 'paying the price with the spin of a wheel
and roll of a dice' but this is still the song of a devout believer: every
minor key verse comfortably lands on the cushion of a major key chorus that
seems to bring realisation and the repeated line 'any road will take you there'
flies off into the distance like some beacon of hope. Note too George's hint at
'future lives' in the last verse - that he'll 'just keep travelling round the
bend because there is no beginning and is no end', the one reference to death
on an album many fans expected to be full of it, actually written when the
composer had never been in better health. The lyrics also make for a neat,
upbeat contrast to Paul's 'The Long and Winding Road' - that no matter how many
wrong paths we walk down in our live any road eventually takes you to
enlightenment and learning that's the main concern of life on Earth. Only a
slightly too short riff to base the song on and a slightly artificial feel in
the performance (the one recording on this album that sounds like overdubs made
by people not in the same room at the same time) prevent this one from being a
100% classic - even so, it's rather good.

'P2 Vatican Blues' is a very unusual song. In the
past George's targets have included tax collectors, ignorance and the other
Beatles - this is the only time he attacks organised religion. Things had moved
on so quickly since Lennon had made his misquoted 'Beatles are bigger than
Jesus' remark in 1966 that the press barely batted an eye lid, but its
fascinating to hear the song of a 35-year-convert to Hinduism and Buddhism
taking the Catholic religion he grew up with (while not strong believers
Harrison did go to a Liverpool Catholic school) to task, basically for being
false. At the time the Catholic church seemed like an easy target: an
institution with falling numbers and influence. However events since 2002 have
suggested that George was paying close attention to the 'sex' scandals and
tales of abuse that have rocked the institution during the past 15 years closer
than any of the papers were ('It's quite suspicious, to say the least - even
mentioned it to my local priest'). You sense we haven't quite got to the bottom
of how wide-ranging the abuse scandals were yet either, what with Pope
Benedict's sudden announcement that he was leaving (I like Pope Francis,
though, whose done as much as he can to be transparent and heal warring
factions and if ever the church is going to rise up again it's via the work
he's doing now - and voting 'Revolver' as the Papacy's favourite album does him
no harm at all in my eyes!) What in, say, Lennon's hands would have been
scathing screaming song of outrageousness is treated with just a wry grin here
though: George thinks the church should be inspiring great works of art, like
the Michelangelo painting on the Sistine Chapel he wakes up underneath - but
instead in his eyes the Church has become a mere spectacle that stands for
nothing. George tells us that it's 'all a show', with the puffs of smoke
telling the world that a new Pope has been chosen now spectacle rather than
just tradition. The repeated chorus line 'last Saturday night' also has the
effect of turning this fast-paced blues into a party: something frivolous on
the level of a rock concert, where priests breaking the law can repent after
such a series of 'hail Marys'. However, clever as much of the result is, there
isn't much of a song to go with George's observations - this song kind of
slides by without you noticing.

'Pisces Fish', on the other-hand, is gorgeous. A
tale of the world carrying on as normal, without the enlightenment George has
just been granted, 'Pisces Fish' is one of Harrison's greatest songs about
being a 'believer'. The song might cut even deeper than that, though. The
reference to mad cow disease ('The farmer stands around complaining that his
mad cows are being put to sleep') pins at least this final draft of the song to
no earlier than 2000, when George was already very poorly: is this
'Brainwashed's one attempt at a last eulogy? The song is very George, dealing
with the two halves of his nature where the religious aspects of life drive him
on but he still has a very earthy sense of humour, watching the very human
exploits of the people around him and experiencing it himself when his bicycle
breaks down. The last verse, especially, feels like an 'ending': 'Sometimes my
life feels like fiction, some of the days it's really quite serene, I'm a
living proof of life's contradictions, one half going where the other half's
just been'. Along the way there's yet another sig at the Catholic Church, with
'smoke signals' from a brewery' announcing the 'latest Pope' and a cast of
priests who sound like extras from one of those 1960s series with Derek Nimmo
as a slapstick vicar. George's narrator, however, knows that the truth doesn't
lie there but in the people themselves who don't 'see' it: 'One unbounded ocean
of bliss that's flowing through your parents, sons and daughters', passed on
from one generation to the next. As a result 'Pisces Fish' isn't really a full
'end' either, but a recognition that life goes on in some other body next time
around. 'Pisces Fish' is still moving, though, in the same way that every
actor's final 'goodbye' as the timelord in Dr Who is moving even though we know
that the story will carry on in a few months. One of George's most moving
songs, this sensitive lyric is accompanied by a sweet melody that seems to be
wearily shrugging its shoulders throughout before finally taking the plunge
into the next part of the song. Only a vocal that's clearly here merely as a
'guide' one (was this the last song George got ready for the album?) prevents a
flood of tears. The quiet highlight of 'Brainwashed', 'Pisces Fish' is the
'real' George - sombre, stately, but with twinges of humour to lighten
everything and put a smile on your face.

'Looking For My Life' is the saddest song on the
album. Sounding not unlike the great 'Wake Up My Love' from 'Gone Troppo' (Jim
Keltner even plays a similar drum lick), this is George the impatient believer
wanting a 'sign' and wanting it now. 'Oh Lord, won't you listen to me now?' the
song starts, but this time around George 'learns' patience as the song goes on.
'I never knew that things exploded' Harrison sings, shocked at the sudden down
turn of events in his life, declaring that for all his songs and experiences he
only found out about life 'when I was down upon my knees, looking for my life'.
There's a twist in the second verse: the fault is George's, not God's: 'I had
no idea I was heading to a state of emergency, I had no fear where I was
treading' - but God had different plans and, a humble servant, George feels he
should have guessed that instead of becoming 'content'. Chances are George had
written this somewhere in the 1990s, a decade of turbulence for him and family
as we've seen, but his moving vocal suggests that this recording, at least, was
made after his diagnosis when he knew he was dying. George being George he
can't resist a joke at his own expense - laughing that he should have known
better and to expect the unexpected he adds 'I never got any GCEs'. The really
sad thing about this song, though, isn't the words but the melody: crushed by
the weight of circumstances it really does sound as if George is 'down upon his
knees' and the chorus literally forces his head to the floor, the line 'looking
for my life' sung in such a deep descending growl that he has problems getting
there. It's as if he's fallen further than even he thought he'd ever fall, way
out of his comfort zone, and the fact that the vocal yearns throughout to rise
to Heaven throughout makes it even sadder.

'Rising Sun' is happier, but blander. This one of
George's 'outward' looking songs (which sounds rather out of place on an album
of high autobiography): the world is a messed up place, he sings, 'crippled by
boundaries, programmed into guilt, till your nervous system starts to tilt' and
a 'room of mirrors' that pretend to 'see' far in the distance but really show
nothing. However the 'rising sun' (the traditional symbol of The East, although
more normally meaning Japan not George's beloved India) offers answers, the
idea that we've all been here before and that there's a 'universe at play -
you're a billion years old today!' Although not released as the single, this
song appeared heavily in promotion for the record and was one of this album's
two selections (along with 'Any Road' and 'Marwa Blues') to appear on the
Olivia-sanctioned 'Songs By George Harrison') suggesting that its author was
rather proud or fond of it. Certainly 'Rising Sun' has a clever lyric that
manages to say quite eloquently what George had been thinking for a while and there
simply had to be a song like this on the album - a re-write of a theme George
has been using most of his career - but alas this is no 'Living In The Material
World', never mind 'Within You, Without You'. There's no real melody to work
with here (George speaks rather than sing for most of the recording) and Jeff
Lynne succumbs too often to the temptation of making it 'sound' busy: adding
the sort of ELO strings that worked on 'When We Was Fab' but detract from this
little song that should be small and understated, rather than an epic. The
result is a song that's clever but not very emotional and filled with sounds
that are off-putting rather than enticing.

The delicious 'Marwa Blues' is all emotion though: a
long slow guitar blues using George's favourite slide guitar part, this one
scored highly on our 'best ever AAA instrumentals' article (back in News, Views
and Music Issue 124) and features a moving series of chords that really do feel
like a 'progression' from first to last. There's a superb orchestral
arrangement from Marc Mahn (it seems odd that Lynne didn't do this) that
provides a delicate orchestral accompaniment that ebbs and flows alongside
George's part as if playing a different tune but one that's perfectly in
sympathy, caught halfway between 'Something' and 'I Am The Walrus'. We've been
rude about Lynne a couple of times on this site already but his keyboard parts
are spot on too, adding atmosphere without detracting from the song. No one
seems to be quite in agreement what 'Marwa Blues' means as a title, but as a
keen gardener I'm willing to bet George at least knew about the Indian flower
of the same name; he may also have known that the phrase 'Marwa' means fragrant
and full of life - in some readings it even means 'pregnant'! That's an apt
name for an instrumental that seems to be teeming with life: a beautiful
soundscape where George's slide guitar sounds terribly at home, with this track
interestingly pulling at the heart strings more than any of the actual 'songs'
on this LP. Unlike many instrumentals, 'Marwa Blues' doesn't need any words
though: the emotion, sadness and fragility on the one hand and hope and awe on
the other are there for all to hear.

My favourite song on the album, though, is 'Stuck
Inside A Cloud'. Another of George's more timid songs, it depicts just what a
sad and lonely time the years before this album were sometimes for him: 'Lost
my concentration, I could even lose my touch' he sighs, but no matter how much
he talks to himself or 'cries out aloud' he can't get his message through in
song or thought. Interestingly the chorus reads differently in the lyric
booklet compared to the way George sings it. The song says: 'Only I can hear me
and I'm stuck inside a cloud', suggesting isolation, but the way George sings
the word 'me' it sounds like 'you' - thus making this another song about God
and trying to pass his message on when George seems to be a lone voice in an
ugly material world. A gorgeous melody that's awash with synthesisers and
really does sound like being 'stuck inside a cloud', a storming guitar solo and
George's best vocal on the album make for a highly memorable recording as well
as just a song. However it's the last verse, possibly added later, that really
hits you: 'Just talking to myself, crying out aloud, knowing as you leave me I
also lose my heart'. Even after all his years believing in another life after
this one and of recording the ultimate accepting song about death ('All Things
Must Pass') George is still afraid of what comes next. An extraordinary, moving
song, 'Cloud' is a tremendous achievement and would be a highlight of any
Harrison record, never mind the one where he says goodbye. Released as the
first single from the album (as a 'download only' gimmick that George would
have hated) this song deserved to do better; most fans seem to be oddly
negative towards it, perhaps because it doesn't offer that hope and serenity we
were expecting from George's last works. However I'd much rather George ended
the way he started, by telling it like it is and he was rarely braver than on
this moving song. As an interesting footnote I've only just learnt, George was
as interested in numerology as Lennon, but instead of '9' his favourite number
was '7' and he would often start albums from the 'seventh' track when buying
something new. It was Dhani, wanting to keep as close to his father's wishes as
he could, asked for this song - also his favourite and one he considered to be
the 'heart' of the album - who pushed for this song to be track seven on the
album where it works rather well.

From hereon-in 'Brainwashed' dips a little. '(Can
Only) Run So Far' (as it's listed in the booklet - the back of the sleeve drops
the part in brackets completely) is a song George had already given away once
to Eric Clapton for his 'Journeyman' album in 1989. Eric's version is slower
and less urgent than George's and the pair duel on the guitar parts rather than
Harrison playing solo. The lyrics are identical though: a very Harrison
reflection on how you can travel to the ends of the Earth ('You fly out as your
smile runs thin') and buck your responsibilities but some day they'll always
catch up with you. The song suits George's gravelly voice much better (Eric's
features both men singing at once and while compatible harmonically in every
other sense their vocals were not designed to go together!) Considering what a
sad song it really is (basically, it says we're all doomed for every mistakes
we make) the mood is decidedly more upbeat on George's version, more accepting that
things will turn out fine in the end. Possibly inspired by the Handmade Films
business problems, it might have been written for Denis O'Brien trying to
wriggle out of court appearances - or might have been written to gee Harrison
up for his own part in the proceedings.

'Never Get Over You' is a love song for Olivia that
uses many of the sounds 'associated' with her - the kind of exotic Hawaiian
guitar that filled up all of George's albums between 1979 and 1983. In fact so
similar is the sound this sounds like a 'Gone Troppo' outtake - the song even
has the same dreamy, sleepy feel as much of that 'holiday' album, together with
lyrics that sounds like a re-write of 1979's 'Dark Sweet Lady' and a slightly
uncomfortabler poppy middle eight straight out of 'Somewhere In England'.
George's last love song, it doesn't quite have the majesty or the
thoughtfulness of 'Something' or the cuteness of 'I Need You' but it does at
least sound warm and content and emotionally honest, which puts it a notch
above anything on 'Cloud Nine' for a start. George admits that he isn't the
best or warmest of human beings occasionally, but Olivia has a way of
defrosting his iciest mood and of 'warming the coldest feet' whenever he goes
'off' one of the projects he's working on. Compared to other songs for Olivia
('My Dark Sweet Lady' especially), this song sounds notably ethereal rather
than earth-bound, up in the stars rather than taking place on Earth. Does this
song reflect George's hope that the pair will meet again in the 'sky' one day?

'Devil and the Deep Blue Sea' is the joker in the
pack. Taped during a Jools Holland appearance in 1992 (the pair's friendship
was one of the reason Holland got the interviewing job on 'Anthology'), George
instantly sounds ten years younger and the live vocal and lack of overdubs
gives a twinkling feel to this inter-war song first recorded by Cab Calloway. A
music hall novelty, it fits Jools Holland's plunckity-plunk playing to a tee
but is more of a stretch for George despite the chance it gives him to play a
ukulele on national television. A rather silly song about being forced between
two bad things, it really doesn't fit this album tonally, musically or
texturally and might perhaps have been better left as a one-off rarity. However
I can see where Jeff and Dhani were going by adding this song: George has a
twinkle in the voice that 'Brainwashed' could have done with more of and the
theme of the song (the duality, the water themes, the dealing with pressure
from both sides so that you don't know whether action or inaction is worse) is
spot-on for this troubled album, even if the oompah-ing brass and tickled
ivories aren't.

Hidden away near the end, 'Rocking Chair In Hawaii'
is a curious song that gets easily overlooked. A sleepy blues that sounds naggingly
familiar (although I can't quite place where the sing-songy riff comes from -
any ideas?!), it's actually an outtake that dates all the way back to 'All
Things Must Pass'. It seems odd that George should revive it now (his peak days
for reviving old days was in the late 70s and early 80s) as it's hardly a
classic and runs out of ideas long before the three minutes are up (he should
have revived the fun 'Window Window' or the sweet 'Cosmic Empire' instead).
George presumably 'returned' to this song when he did because he wrote it as an
imaginary version of when he got old when he was all of 27 (just as Paul wrote
'When I'm 64' when he was 15), imagining himself in a rocking chair by a river.
In a neat mirror of 'Any Road' and 'Pisces Fish', though, he adds that 'you may
be going where you've just been', a neat combination of the two songs that
might have jogged his memory of this 'lost' song (especially if he really was
sitting by a river in a rocking chair as his 'new' title set in his favourite holiday
destination 'Hawaii' suggests. However really this isn't so much a song as a
chance to sound like a blues guitarist and singer for a few minutes: a sound
that doesn't suit George all that well, while the riff that darts in and out of
the song doesn't really fit.

Thankfully 'Brainwashed' ends powerfully, George
choosing to make his final message to the world an update of 'Living In The
Material World', telling us the truth now that there's nobody out there to
silence him. Very much like that track (and in keeping with the duality of the
album) 'Brainwashed' sounds like its hopping from foot to foot, based on a
turbulent minor key verse that never goes where you expect and the serene,
gorgeous major key certainty of the 'spiritual' part. I'd love to know whether
it was deliberate, but George's song is both very similar and very different to
Lennon's 'God' ('Lennon/Plastic Ono Band' 1970), a 'denial' of every single
belief system used by the human race as mere fiction: that our leaders,
Governments, even 'God' and ultimately even The Beatles are a 'fake' that no longer means everything. George comes close to saying the same thing
in his own clever quick-stepping lyrics, telling us how we're brainwashed from
childhood by teachers, by Kings and Queens
and politicians and the military when we're older and that life could be
so much more if only we'd look! The only people preventing human beings from
fulfilling themselves in the eyes of God are rules and regulations made by
other human beings and most of us don't even realise it. George builds up to a
froth of indignation that's great to hear after a comparatively laidback album and
some of the lines are his cleverest in years, caught midway between a joke and
a rant. However the moment where George disagrees with John is by offering an
answer and hope. Over a peaceful backing - and one last outing for an Indian
instrument (the tabla) Isabela Borzymowska reads out passages from 'How To Know
God', a philosophical tome by The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjaki (thus completing
a circle that began with George taking the lyric from 'The Inner Light' from a
similar book 35 years earlier). Refusing
to turn his back on the human race, even in death, George screams 'I just won't
accept defeat!' and enrols a choir of his friends and family to chant 'God God
God' like a mantra, imploring the messiah to rise then and there and save the
world from itself. Like 'God' (suggesting George did know the song), George
cycles back round the song again, growing up another head of steam until the sing
finally crash lands at around the four minute mark. At first we think that's
it, that George has left us with those crashing chords and silence. But no, one
single organ note shines through, like a tiny light from the darkness that
gradually takes over the whole song while George chants about the greatness of
God and tries to save our soul one last time. Debate has raged about these
words ever since 'Brainwashed' came out and many fans assume that George made
them up (it's not in a very well known language. But no: one enterprising fan
got in touch with the American Hindu Association and asked for a translation of
the closing mantra. The words, it turns out, mean this: Sing the name of the Goddess Parvati, the remover of all afflictions,
Sing praises to the Divine, Praise, Praise be to Shiva the Great God' And with
that George is finally gone, the organ note not stopping so much as
disappearing down a dark hole that swallows it up, perhaps hinting at it
reconverging during our next life where if we're lucky we get to hear the
'rest' of the song - and every other 'George' song to come. It's a magical
moment on one of George's most important epics and is typically Harrison,
making us both happy and sad, outraged and contented, upset and hopeful all at
the same time. 'Brainwashed' isn't always a great album and doesn't always
offer us what we know George was capable of, but this one song (and 'Stuck
Inside A Cloud') pretty much rescue the album singlehandedly, with all the
emotional weight we were expecting.

In truth, though, not as much of 'Brainwashed' offers
that emotional balance we were expecting. There was a lot riding on this album
which it simply couldn't cope with and in many ways George turns in his most
'lightweight' album those two great masterpieces aside (the same is true, of
course, for Lennon's lightweight 'Double Fantasy', although he had less idea
that his time was coming to an end) Don't come to this record expecting some
grand statement on the lines of 'All Things Must Pass' - by George's high
standards it's not even that good an LP. However parts of 'Brainwashed' get
Harrison's spirit, humour, occasional rage and humanity spot on and for the
third of the album that works best ('Cloud' 'Brainwashed' 'Marwa Blues' 'Pisces
Fish') 'Brainwashed' is still an essential purchase every Harrison fan should
love. It's the rest of the album that's a bit lower in quality than we were
expecting (especially after so many years of work spent on it). A successful
musical elaboration on this album's main theme of 'a voice crying out in the
wilderness', it's a shame for this record's sake that it wasn't finished
earlier and that there was never a chance for the follow-up. Removed from it's
sad job as George's goodbye it's actually a promising album that's grown up
nicely since 'Cloud Nine'; as George's last goodbye, however, it seems fragile
and incomplete, a commiseration rather than a celebration of why we loved
George quite so much. No matter: despite a late surge of doubt across this
album, George still offers the hope that one day we will meet again - and until
that day 'Brainwashed' is the next best thing, full of everything George wanted
to say by and large told in the right way.

Other George Harrison reviews from this site you might be interested in reading:

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About Me

Born in the nexus point of Britain (well, the Midlands anyway), the author has swapped the concrete paradise of Stafford for …the concrete paradise of Ormskirk/Skelmersdale.

Along the way he got a music GCSE and A level (including a national award for his composing work) and music theory grades 3-5, so he should at least vaguely know what he is talking about. He was also awarded an English and History degree from St Martin’s College in Carlisle for his research work and ability to make 3000-word essays quadruple in length overnight (Carlisle remains his spiritual home, whenever it isn’t raining – which is, sadly, most of the time).

Journalism wise his highlights have been writing possibly the worlds last article on Gene Pitney (which was due to have been published two days after he died), enthusing over debut singles by now semi-famous artists like The Editors, Feeder and Newton Faulkner and – the most worthy of all – told the world that Chico out of X Factor was an idiot with a loud voice and nobody should buy his single. Of course, everybody did and it made number one. His artistic crest is the following description of a record: ‘two parts melodious funk to one part Theolonious Monk’!

When not writing his past-times include moaning about continuity points on sci-fi programmes such as Dr Who, Blake's 7, Sapphire and Steel and Timeslip, vainly supporting Alonso through thick and thin in F1 racing, cursing at the Coalition for their sheer incompetence and lying down in a darkened room recovering from chronic fatigue attacks.

The author has spent approximately 31 and a half of his 32 years listening to music in some form or another (he was asleep for the other 6 months before you ask) and has been officially declared ‘monkeynuts’ after spending three months working at the Skills Exchange in Skelmersdale (which seemed like a lifetime). This website - which started off at its 'old' home at www.alansalbumarchives.moonfruit.com - is now six years old, has covered over 450 albums by various artists and has received in total more than 280,000 hits. You can hear the author's music, see his youtube videos (starring Max The Singing Dog) and read more of his awful puns and jokes about the Spice Girls by checking out the 'links' pages further down the site...

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Hello and welcome to our fourth special edition of our newsletter. Our past special editions have looked at AAA compilations (News and ...

List of links for main reviews per band

Please click here to read more articles from 'back issues' of album reviews from News, Views and Music, which are listed alphabetically by band and chronologically by album (please note this section is a pain to update so we only do it every so often – have a look bottom right at the ‘100 most recent articles’ if you’re after more to read!) Please note also that we still have about 100 records we haven’t covered yet – we should be finished this humungous project in about two years (depending on how many more Neil Young puts out between now and 2017!!!) so please be patient with us if we haven't got to your favourite yet (although if we haven’t and you really want to read it, then why now leave a comment and let us know and we’ll move it up the pile!) Please also see below this list for 'top five'/'top ten' articles. Happy reading - and, err, sorry about the eye strain!!! Updated as of April 2017